1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication terminal device such as a portable telephone, and to a related computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable telephones are now widely used. Normally a portable telephone has a telephone book function (or address book function) for managing personal telephone numbers, and a outgoing and incoming call history function for storing the telephone numbers of the callers and receivers.
If the address book function is used, the user can efficiently manage the telephone numbers of a plurality of individuals by manually inputting the telephone number corresponding to an individual and the name of the owner of the telephone number, and registering them as one data entry. When the user calls an individual for whom the telephone number is registered in the address book, all that is required is to select the individual from the candidates registered in the address book, and the troublesome task of inputting the telephone number is omitted.
In many cases, when the outgoing and incoming call history function is used, the screen displaying the outgoing and incoming call history can be switched directly to the address book registration screen, so that the telephone numbers remaining in the outgoing and incoming call history can be easily registered in the address book.
Recently, however, one individual often corresponds to a plurality of telephone numbers, that is one individual often has a plurality of telephone numbers, for example, the telephone number of the work site which is printed on a business card, the number of a portable telephone provided by the company for work, a number of a portable telephone which is used privately, a number of a stationary phone at home, and a telephone number of a facsimile.
In a situation where one individual has a plurality of telephone numbers, if the telephone number that remains in the outgoing and incoming call history is registered in the address book, the owner of this telephone number could be a same owner of another telephone number already registered in the address book.
A prior art related to the registration of the telephone number to the address book, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-174891 proposes a technology for locking the telephone number that remains in the outgoing and incoming call history by the operation of the user, so that deletion of the locked telephone number from the outgoing and incoming call history is prevented before it is registered in the address book. When the telephone number is locked, the user can record the name of the owner of the telephone number by voice. And when the telephone number is registered in the address book, the user can call up the owner of the telephone number that remains in the outgoing and incoming call history by reproducing the recorded voice.
As a background technology on telephones, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-138742, No. H11-196177 and No. 2003-115920 are known. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-138742 proposes that a callers voice is automatically recorded when a call is received, and the recorded voice is saved in the address book along with the telephone number, and is used as a ring back tone.
However, in the prior art, when the telephone number that remains in the outgoing and incoming call history is registered in the address book, a user's operation is required even when the owner of the telephone number is the same as an owner of another telephone number already registered in the address book. In other words, the user must call up the data entry of the same person registered in the address book. Then the user must select such the operation as replacing the already registered telephone number and the telephone number that remains in the outgoing and incoming call history (overwrite processing), or adding the telephone number that remains in the outgoing and incoming call history (addition processing).